Hi there!

I finally got my cook top and was reading the directions about how to install the stupid thing and I heard the news guy saying that there was a group of nuts who wanted to protest at the funerals of those little girls in Pennsylvania. They're supposedly a church group and a christian group at that. It's people like those who make Rosie O'Donnell make sense and I never thought that I would say that.

Then, some nutty broad here in Georgia wants to ban Harry Potter books from the schools here because they "make kids want to be witches". Oh...my...God.

I grew up reading Nancy Drew books and I never wanted to be a titian haired teen-aged detective. I watched The Wizard of Oz many times and I never once wanted to run away with my dog to Munchkin Land. My mother sang us a song about a lady...Miss Effy was her name, through the West she won her fame, she would whip out her pistol and shoot most any guy, and sing out her alibi...I didn't know the gun was loaded and I'm so sorry my friend, I didn't know the gun was loaded...and I'll never ever do it again". I never shot anyone (not that I didn't have a few occasions where I felt somewhat justified).

I can't believe that here in the 21rst century, we have people who think our kids are so fricking stupid that they can't tell the difference between a book and real life. Banning books in this day and age? Why don't we just put the people who wrote the books in the stocks and stick scarlet letters on the chests of adultereres?

Any semi-intelligent woman would realize books that children love help them learn to love reading as well. If she were worried that her kids might join a coven because they've read a book about witches (or whatever the heck those books are about), she could simply take the opportunity to teach her kids a bit of reality.

Does this nut really think that she can save kids by blinding them to all things evil? That's not to say that those Potter books ARE evil, I have no clue what they're about. But only a totally ignorant lunatic would think that children would be better off if books were banned whenever they included something that someone might find offensive.

Say we do ban these books for this crazed mother...do we ban books about cowboys when the Indians bitch? Then, do we ban books about football because another mother doesn't want her little boy to be injured as a result of his yearning to play the game that he read about? Where does this stop?

I think that we all need to re-read Farenhite 451 and see what happens when book banning is allowed. What a dangerous precedent such a thing would set. If we ban books that offend that woman, we have to begin banning books that offend the woman down the street and before you know it, there are no more books left on the shelves.

I have to question the motives of this she-nut. She says that she doesn't want her kids reading books about witches but I don't believe for one second that her kids haven't watched The Wizard of Oz. How about reruns of Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?

And what about the woman herself? Has she watched an episode of Desperate Housewives or any soap opera at all? Did that make her screw her neighbor's husband?

Does she think her kids are so stupid that they can't read a book and understand the concept of a fantasy? Well, maybe she knows her own kids better that I do. But I think that most of the kids in any given classroom can handle reading books written for children without ending up casting spells on people.

If she is so unnerved at the prospect of enlightening children, perhaps she can take them to Iran. I hear that those kids don't learn much at all. Hell, her daughters wouldn't even have to go to school at all. That ought to make her happy.

What a week in our country...children shot down in schools, people preaching hate in the name of a religion based upon love, politicians taking advantage of victimized children to win votes, and now we're giving airtime to some nut who is afraid of a kid's book. Oy vey.

Meg